In the Midst of Life
by lady-of-destruction-aria
Summary: All my life I've waited for death. It was never a question of if, but of when. You're going to die. Live with it.
1. Chapter 1

All characters and places from Tales of Symphonia belong to Namco. Any extra characters, plot lines or anything not seen in the initial storyline of the game belong to me.

**It is common belief that life thrives off of variety. Day and night, sleep and wakefulness, joy and grief, love and hatred...We thrive off this diversity, using it to grow and develop, to make the most of our lives and enable us to die happy, feeling fulfilled. That is the nature of life: the fulfillment of dreams in the brief time that you are given in this world, before the small spark of light that is your soul goes out, falling into the eternal darkness that can either be everlasting peace, or perpetual damnation...**

**All my life I've waited for death. It was never a question of if I would die, but when. "You're going to die. Live with it." Naturally, that's easier said than done. How is it possible to live with death? Death defies the very nature of life itself. Where in life there is warmth and light, death is a cold black void, silent where life is full of sounds, colourless against the vibrance of our world. It was death that stole my father's love from my mother, death that tore her away from my grasp when I was barely old enough to grasp the concept of our family's dire existence. It was death that prevented my brother from seeing his twenty-fifth birthday, and death that, I was now firmly convinced, would soon take me. I was alone, in a world of superstitious people that wouldn't dirty themselves with my cursed blood, with only myself, an abandoned building that had once been home, and a blessed sword that would soon reject me as the darkness consumed my soul. At this point, there was no talk of life. Death would come soon. It was only a matter of time...**

The snow fell steadily from the grey sky overhead, soft fluffy flakes that caught on tree branches and stuck to hair and clothing alike. A cool wind whipped through narrow stairways and scattered loose snow across cobblestone plazas, forcing people to pull their fur-lined hoods closer against their skin, and shiver as the snow stung their faces. And in the shadow of a tall building near the entrance to town stood a young man with his hand on a sword.

Had anyone bothered to look closer, they would have noticed several oddities about him. For one thing, the hilt resting under his slender hand was glowing a faint green, banishing the darkness about his body somewhat. For another, three items lay at his feet: a strange looking key and two even stranger swords. Anyone who was watching-which was no one- would have seen one of the twin blades twitch slightly, as if possessed of a life of its own, and would have wondered of the weapons' nature. But perhaps the most unnatural of the unnaturalness was that he was wearing nothing but a shirt and a pair of pants, iron-shod boots on his feet, yet seemed to not so much blink as the frigid wind blew past him and pulled his midnight blue hair across his face. He let it continue its waving movement for a moment, then, sighing softly, he brushed it out of his eyes, breaking his stone-like stance and proving to the world-had it bothered to care-that he was indeed alive and not some statue placed inconveniently in a doorway. He glanced at the clock mounted up above a building to his left, then sighed once more and paced quickly to the edge of the step.

"Quarter to ten..." Once, long ago, there had been someone else to talk to, but now it was only him, and so he voiced his thoughts aloud, gaining some small comfort from the sound of his voice. "Time passes slower everyday." Pausing, he seemed to wait for some sort of agreement then, when it was not forthcoming, he walked slowly back towards the doorway. In his path was a small sign of polished wood, taking up the whole breadth of the small pathway and reading in ornately painted letters "Closed for the Season."

At first, when the sign had first gone up, people had come to peer at it, and wonder what the sudden closure was for.

"The shop used to be open year-round," they'd whisper, glancing uncertainly at the door lest the figure beside it hear their conversation. "Sold the finest weapons you could get anywhere, that one did." For a while, they would spin tales to their listeners of the wonders for sale within: swords that glowed with unearthly light and cut through monster flesh like it was no more substantial than air; arrows that could hit the blackest of hearts every shot no matter how inaccurate the aim, and staffs that could heal the gravest of maladies and purify a tainted soul. But eventually their words of wonder would fade into silence, and they would look at the building with a small shrug and a shake of their head. "It's been four years since that sign's gone up. Odd part 'bout of it, all the owners are dead, all of 'em except that strange one, there. Bad stroke of luck that family's got, no two ways about it." And eventually, they had stopped caring. The store remained closed, the family remained dead, and the last surviving member, Abyssion Naezheim, remained standing on the steps of his abandoned home, seemingly waiting for death to claim him as well.

He was waiting, but not for quite so bleak a cause. A sign, that's all he needed to step off his small island of isolation into the vastness of the world and search for the keys that would unlock his true destiny, not this dark existence his family had been forced to endure for so long. A sign, yet there was nothing but falling snow, and a city of people who stared right through him and wouldn't approach him, lest the terrible illness that had befallen all of his relatives reach out its groping fingers and catch them in their inescapable grasp.

"A sign," he whispered, lifting his face to the heavens and letting the snow create small spots of coolness on his skin. "Someone, somewhere, give me a sign!" For a moment there was utter silence, then far off in the distance a dog barked, a small child cried out as their parent scooped them out of a snowdrift they had decided to fall into, and the snow continued its relentless downfall, shrouding the world in a colourless blanket of white.

Well, here we are. I've found that it creates bad karma to say that this is your first fanfic at the top of the page, but since anyone reading this will have already read the whole chapter, I see no harm in telling you now. Yep, that's right. My first fanfic! happy As you've probably already figured out, I've decided to do my own spin-off of the Devil's Arms quest, from Abyssion's point of view. It'll probably conflict with every other story out there about him being a liar and traitor and everything but hey, it's good to shake it up a little once in a while.

I'm going to try to keep my Author Notes short and avoid rambling (which is hard for me, I tell you) so I'll finish this off now. I hope anyone who read this enjoyed it, and I wouldn't mind a review or two! sweatdrop

lady-of-destruction-aria


	2. Chapter 2

If Tales of Symphonia belonged to me, I'd be a total genius, rich, and adored by fans worldwide. Since I'm not, not even close to being, and probably never will be, guess it's not mine. HOWEVER: Any extra scenes, characters and plot lines not seen in the game ARE mine. So back off!

And with that, here we go!

**--------**

_Abyssion sat on the edge of the bed, watching in horrified fascination as his mother moaned, clawing at the dark scars creeping across her skin. He knew that she was ill, perhaps dangerously so, but his four year old mind couldn't comprehend that it wasn't a normal ailment, not just a stray cold you could pick up from staying out in the snow too long and would go away eventually. Watching him with worried eyes was his brother, Naideth, most likely waiting for his younger brother to break under the strain of losing their only remaining family member. But Abyssion sat silently, grasping his mother's hand as she reached for him. _

"_Nai..." Following the movement of her glazed eyes, he watched as his brother moved to the other side of the deathbed, leaning to catch their mother's barely audible voice. "Take...care of your brother...Promise me!" Her eyes flared suddenly, and she struggled to sit up, reaching out a blackened arm even as Naideth pushed her down. _

"_Of course, mother! I promise." Her elder son's voice seemed to calm her, and she fell down with a soft moan. "First the dulling, then the dreams will call. Darkness closes fast, and terror ends it all..." Abyssion didn't understand why Naideth said it, but somehow he knew that it explained something that was still confusing to him, explained why his mother's eyes were slowly opening, formerly green irises a startling red..._

"_Abyssion!" Naideth was in front of him then, seeming to be attempting to block his mother's form from view. "Get out of here, now." He stared at his brother in reply, feeling his fear but still not able to understand how truly dark of magic was at work there. _

"_Mum?" She had screamed, almost in reply, a horrible sound that echoed through the room like some sort of hellish alarm and brought the terror down upon him, making him flee from the room and the horrors within. But her voice followed him, until he collapsed to the ground, voice rising in a mixture between scream and sob at the darkness that had seemingly consumed all that he had once found comfort in..._

"NAI!" It took him a moment to realize that his screams were the only ones filling the room, that it wasn't his mother's ragged breathing sounding in his ears but his own, and that his brother was dead and couldn't hear his cries. Sitting up shakily, he rubbed his temples in an attempt to erase the twisted remnants of the nightmare from his mind, then sighed miserably and slumped back under the blankets. First the dulling, then the dreams will call...

_Little lost soul, waiting for your own demise..._He barely flinched as the Voice entered his mind, soft tones the only sense of comfort he could find in the room. Right after Nai had died, when he had been lost to the point of being almost unreachable, sick with grief and despair, that was when he had first heard its whispers in his head. He had been terrified at first, screaming for it to go away whenever it sounded and attracting the stares of many a passerby, but it had remained gentle and consoling, and gradually, with no one else to turn to, he had come to trust it. If you were going to die, might as well have someone to share your last days with, even if it was some sort of spin-off of his steadily increasing insanity. So rather than trying to banish it into the darkness from whence it came, he rolled onto his stomach and pillowed his head on his arms, trying to think of an appropriate response.

"There's nothing else to wait for," he whispered finally. "My senses have been dulled to the point of non feeling, and now the dreams plague me every night. Tell me, all-knowing hidden Voice, what is there to live for?"

_You must not give up, young one. Not until the very end, until the terror fades from your eyes and the strength leaves your body. Only then will you be fulfilled, only then will you be able to say you lived up to your family name. _

"Fulfilled..." Rolling over, Abyssion smiled, a bitter ironic smile that was lost among the darkness. "Pah. I hardly call this being fulfilled." But the dreams didn't return, and he slipped into slumber.

Morning came suddenly, a blinding glow of light hitting yesterday's snowfall and reflecting a thousand fold into the faces of sleeping inhabitants. Though it hurt his head, already foggy from lack of sleep, Abyssion couldn't deny a small feeling of relief beneath his discomfort, for the brief respite from the darkness that had all but consumed his life.

_Damn this sun! _The Voice seemed to dislike the light even more than he did, grumbling loudly as Abyssion pulled a piece of bread out of the cupboard and set it on the stove to toast. _The light of this world is so harsh, I don't know how you put up with it for all these years! _

"I like it," the blue-haired man responded defensively, not bothering to puzzle out the Voice's complaining lest it spoil his good mood. "It makes this place look much better than normal." No one in his family had lived long enough to redecorate after the curse had been laid, and as a result the house was a collection of musty drapery and dark-coloured furniture that seemed much better suited for some ancient king's tomb, rather than a family living space. Humming quietly to himself, he pulled a jar of strawberry jam out of a nearby drawer, then proceeded to smother his toast-not very good toast at that; it was burnt on one side and barely brown on the other-in fruity goodness. That was when it hit him: he was in a good mood. He was HAPPY. Living with death everyday, for the past fifteen years, and yet he still got pleasure out of spreading jam on a badly toasted piece of bread?

"I think today is going to be a good day," he smiled to himself, shoving the toast in his mouth and walking towards the door, to spend yet another day on the doorstep waiting for Goddess knows what to motivate him into action. But as he opened the door and met the chill air of morning-though unnoticeable by him-he was surprised as the Voice answered him, tones filled with barely contained glee.

_Oh yes, young one...I think today will be a very good day. _

**--------**

And there you have it, folks! Chapter Two! Abyssion's so cute at the end of this one. I just want to hug him and keep him all happy-like, but this'll get angsty again next chapter. Yes, Lloyd and them will actually join the story then, and the Devil's Arms quest will start. Until then, ciao!

lady-of-destruction-aria


	3. Chapter 3

wOOt, Chapter 3! Wow, long interval between chapters there. ; School started though, so now I have to follow a schedule once more, and my writing's sorta been pushed to the side. But, here it is, finally! Hope it's worth the wait.

ToS is owned by Namco, extra stuff owned by meeeeeee...Sorry that was such a boring disclaimer. I shall have to think of better ones.

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**Of all the hopes and foolish notions that populate this world, the one that sickens me the most is the belief that love can conquer anything, can make a fairy tale out of any story, no matter how bleak. Libraries and bookstores are full of novels that speak of forbidden love, love between nobles and common folk, love between warring countries, love between people who don't even speak the same language or share the same culture, and yet love always prevails and creates a "happily ever after" scenario for all characters involved. **

**That is what people want to read after all; no sane person would pick up a novel to indulge in the harsh realities of everyday life, to read about suffering and betrayal, of loss and anger and bitterness that will never leave, because everything that was lost will never come back. No, people already have problems, much less having to worry about the heartache of characters in books. All conquering love is a much better topic for those who have to live their everyday lives in this harsh world. **

**For there is one love that is never mentioned in children's stories or famous romances. That is the love of a family of cursed demon hunters, and that is because love can not win in our case, can not banish the darkness that rules our lives. My father thought differently, at first. He believed that with my mother at his side, he could somehow thwart the dark destiny fate had set out for us, and not caring that by marriage he tied himself to our curse, he set out on a quest to find the key to our salvation...He was the first to die. **

**The rest of my family followed soon after, leaving me to contemplate these dark thoughts on my own. And eventually, after many lonely days and sleepless nights, I came to my final conclusion. Love was all some big farce, made up by storytellers and gossipers to add a bit of sweetness to the bitterness that is life. There would never be some affectionate girlfriend to share the lonely evenings and long nights with, no best friend waiting to drop in unexpectedly and brighten my mood, no family members to meet every once in a while for a warm get-together. No, it was all some big lie, and I, already deceived much too much in my life, would not fall for it. **

The first hints of spring were beginning to touch the snow-choked lands, and Flanoir was becoming more lively, slowly wakening from its winter stupor to meet the energy and life of the rest of the warmer world. Warm sunlight filtered down on the roving crowds, filtering through snow covered branches, escaping the grasp of giggling children who reached out small hands in an attempt to capture the fleeting warmth, and shining on young couples wandering around the snowy city in affectionate bliss. It was these that Abyssion watched with particular envy, wondering at the thoughts that flickered beneath those content faces. Perhaps in the depths of winter he would have glared at them in bitterness, longed to take their happiness away from them even, to make the rest of the world as lonely as he was, but his good mood from the morning was still lingering over him and spring was in the air so he merely watched, watched and wondered.

_Do not worry about such trivial matters, child of the keepers of darkness. They could never understand the true power of your noble blood, the depths of your glory. _

"The depths of my damnation," he snapped in reply, and the Voice laughed, ever so slightly. Opening his mouth to ask what was so funny, he was suddenly interrupted as a cry came from a crowd of passerby's, and a young blonde woman tripped and fell to the ground.

"Oops..." Smiling sheepishly, she started to stand up, then slipped on a patch of ice and fell once more, this time scattering the contents of her pack all over the path. "Oh no!" Running up beside her, a small silver-haired boy stared at the mess she had made, then sighed and shook his head.

"That's our Colette," he said, and Abyssion couldn't figure out if he was exasperated or amused. "Lloyd! Be useful for once in your life and help her pick it all up!"

"Shut it Genis!" A red-clad figure with two swords strapped to his waist marched past the sniggering boy, then bent down and started to help the girl shove the items back into the bag. Smiling slightly, Abyssion turned away from them and started to pace the narrow entranceway once more, when a strange sound made him pause. It was a high keening whine that cut through the cool air sharply and seemed to be coming from...

The colour drained from his face, and he bent down to pick up the vibrating key, knowing the implications but unable to believe, unable to grasp that that which he had been seeking for so long had come to him, without him leaving home once...His fingers closed over the whistling object just as the blonde girl's hand fell upon a strange set of chakrams lying in front of her...And all Hell broke loose.

Both chakrams and key uttered an ear-piercing shriek, drawing a startled look from the girl's companions and expressions of utter shock from the townspeople.

"What's going on?" the silver-haired boy-Genis-wailed, just as his friend Lloyd snatched the weapons from the startled girl's hands and shook them in an attempt to shut them up. It failed-miserably-and the high-pitched whine seemed to almost increase in magnitude at the motion. Slightly overwhelmed and spurred on by everyone else's desperation, Abyssion snatched the key off the ground and pressed it to his chest, muffling the sound somewhat. Yet even as the pitch dulled slightly the vibrating increased, until every bone in his body was jarred and his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

_Break the link! _the Voice spat in his head, nearly drowned out by the key's humming. _Break it, and the flow of magic will stop! _Trying to comply, Abyssion realized that his muscles had stiffened, locking his hands in an unbreakable grasp around the cursed item, the spiked shaft digging mercilessly into the soft flesh of his palms.

"I can't..." Stars burst in his vision and he gasped, then, with a grimace, he raised his head and glared at the boy who was still holding the chakrams, look of rising panic on his face. "Boy! Drop the weapons, now!" He didn't even bother to look at where the voice was coming from; the chakrams clattered to the ground, and the world slowly faded into silence. Breathing a sigh of relief, Abyssion felt his hands loosen, and he pulled the key away with one hand, feeling the spikes come free of the skin with a small twinge of pain. He raised his arm, intending to survey the damage, when a sudden fit of dizziness made him fall to his knees.

_Seems like your darkness has caught up with you at last, young one. _The Voice sounded strangely happy, proud even, but Abyssion was unable to contemplate its strange mood swings, too busy staring at his injured hand in morbid fascination. Small cuts crisscrossed his palm in irregular intervals, a mirror of the cursed key lying in the snow beside him, but it wasn't that which drew his gaze. Nor was it the erratic shaking of his outstretched arm that held his eyes, bright green orbs that were slowly filling with steadily increasing horror. And as he watched, a small drop of black blood fell from the wound, a glistening sphere of solid blackness that reflected the depths of his family curse. It hung in the air for a moment, mocking him, reminding him of the evil which had caught him at last, then, with a small hiss, disappeared into the small mound of snow lying at his feet. With it, it took the last thing worth living for. Hope, and life itself...

**--------**

Haha, sorry to cut it off like that. I'll try to get the next chapter up, but I might wait until I get to the Devil's Arms quest in my play-through of ToS. If I choose to do that, it'll probably be a while...but it'll give you something to look forward to, right? I thought so!

lady-of-destruction-aria


	4. Chapter 4

Ugh, I'm SO sorry about my lack of updates! If the few readerss I had in the first place have abandoned me, I don't blame them in the least. High school's a lot more work than I anticipated though, so I haven';t been writing all that much in my spare time...But anyway, here we are. We all know the disclaimer by now, so I'll just let it be, and get on with the long over-due chapter.

**--------**

A dream...Abyssion clutched his hand, shaking with fear and disbelief. Let it be a dream...Any moment now he'd wake up, screaming and alone, and start another bleak day, dull and monotonous, but not condemning like this nightmare...

_You know it's not, child of darkness. _He did. This held nothing of the swirling colours that his nightmares contained, or the shifting shrieks of his dying family faded in the background. Somehow, he had finally fallen into the pit that had engulfed everything else he had known, and once in there was no climbing out.

"Hey, are you ok?" Startled out of his miserable speculations, Abyssion looked up, only to meet the reddish-brown eyes of the blonde girl's companion. For a moment, he couldn't respond. He had become so used to being shunned, was so accustomed to appearing as insubstantial as air to the rest of the world, that the sudden concern this young man gave him threw him momentarily off-guard.

"I..." He should probably lie and tell the boy he was fine, to avoid pulling any more innocents into his dark past and grim future. But as he opened his mouth another wave of weakness hit him, and he caught a glint of dark metal from the bag of the blonde behind him. Dark metal, dark magic, and dark magic, being his specialty, compelled him to respond truthfully. "I seem to have been...struck by darkness." Standing up shakily, he rested a hand on the hilt of the sword resting at his side, taking some small comfort from the warmth of the metal beneath his trembling fingers. If demon-banishing light still accepted him as its rightful bearer it couldn't be that bad, could it...?

The blonde shifted, and the key at his feet began to hum once more, sending off jaw chattering vibrations into the frigid air. Trying not to scowl, Abyssion kicked it into a small mound of snow on the next step, muffling its reaction somewhat. His company didn't appear to notice, but all present relaxed somewhat as the incessant whining ceased.

"So, tell me..." He tried to speak nonchalantly, make it look like the conversation was of no great consequence to him, but a small tremor snuck into his voice, and he clenched his hands tighter around his weapon to keep them from shaking. "Why do you have a set of the Devils Arms?"

For a moment, it seemed like he hadn't be heard. The young man said nothing, and Abyssion feared he would walk away, carrying the demon hunter's last hope for survival with him. But he merely turned and surveyed his companions, seemingly waiting from some sort of sign that indicated he should respond. When no answer was forthcoming he moved to face Abyssion once more, a small line appearing between his eyes.

"What do you mean, Devil's Arms?" he asked, with interest but no great excitement or concern.

_The boy does not even comprehend the power he is carrying. What a sorry fool. _Abyssion chose to ignore the disgust echoing around his head, instead sighing and leaning back against the sign posted on his front step.

"It's a rather long tale...I would invite you in, but the place is a bit of a mess." The young man nodded, and Abyssion realized belatedly that he hadn't even introduced himself to the only people who had ever bothered to listen. "I'm Abyssion Naezheim, sole remaining member of a family of demon hunters by the same name. Whom might you be?"

"I'm Lloyd," the boy replied proudly, resting an arm on one of the twin blades hanging on either hip. "I'm on a journey with my friends. Demon hunter you say? That's really cool! How do you hunt them? I mean, do swords work best, or do you have a kind of special demon hunting weapo..." A silver haired woman cut him off, and he turned an expectant face to the slightly taken aback blue-haired man in front of him. "I'm sorry. What were you saying about the...Demon's Fingers or whatever?"

"Devil's Arms," Abyssion managed finally, wondering if he was in fact, doomed after all, "and it seems you have one in your possession. That," he pointed to the edge of the cursed chakram poking out of the woman's bag, "is one of nine cursed weapons, created by the dark sorcerer Nebilim many generations ago."

"Nebilim..." Lloyd said slowly, as though tasting the words on his tongue for any hints of bitterness. "Sounds evil alright. So what does him and his weapons have to do with anything going on here?" Drawing in a breath, Abyssion matched the reddish-brown gaze of his listener with an intense green stare of his own, then sighed softly and began the story that had been the bane of his family for centuries.

_Nebilim, armed with his nightmarish powers and perched upon his throne of tormented darkness, gave a haunting laugh that echoed around the doomed world, for he knew that he could not be stopped and took joy in the fact. But abruptly, out of the trembling masses of frightened people waiting for the dark judgement to fall, a hero rose. First of the Demon Hunters, heir to the name of Naezheim and last to be blessed by the glorious powers of light, he challenged the demon king, in a bet in which the winning stakes were salvation, while his loss marked the end of his life and the destruction of the world. And Nebilim in his cruelty and arrogance accepted, thinking only to crush the insolent insect who opposed him, and let him serve as a devastating example to the rest of the population. _

_But Nebilim made a critical mistake in engaging the warrior. Naezheim held in his hands nine blessed weapons, designed by the demon hunter to rend unholy flesh and banish demonic forces to the hells from whence they came. They tore through the sorcerer's tainted body, then even as he raised his hand to cast the spell that would prove the undoing of all mankind, they sliced off the arm that held within it such deadly power, cutting off the spell and piercing through the demon king's heart. _

_Naezheim stopped the darkness, but even as he did so he knew he had made a sacrifice, a sacrifice which would live on in his bloodline for many ages. The darkness from Nebilim's last spell seeped out of the limb the held it, saturating the blessed weapons which had first cut it off with malevolent powers, capable of breaking even the most holy of Naezheim's blessings. He fell to his knees, crying out helplessly as the black magic spread up his hands, blackening his skin and making him shudder in pain, even as the world turned a blind eye to his suffering, not willing to risk tainting themselves in the darkness in an attempt to help the fallen warrior. Then the greatest horror of all came: Nebilim's voice, falsely sweet and gentle, echoed in his tortured mind, destroying the last of his self-sacrificing peace. _

_"You are brave, little keeper of darkness," the sorcerer whispered softly, mockingly, "but it is all in vain. You have engaged yourself in something you can never escape, you nor your children after you, nor their children after them, nor anyone that will ever have the bitter misfortune of being born as a bearer of your cursed blood. These nine weapons, pieces of your shattered soul, will seal your fate, and never again shall you walk unburdened beneath the infernally bright sunlight. Bask in your darkness, heir to my glory, future of damnation, and cry in hopelessness, for you can never escape that which was wrought upon you!" _

_And Naezheim did cry, black tears that reflected the depths of his fate, and watched as his weapons scattered, losing themselves amongst the world and with them, any hope of his survival. The Devil's Arms they had become, and like the hands of the dark lord himself they groped at the light, spreading misery and suffering everywhere the fingers of defilement touched. Even as their darkness fell upon the world, the one who had once wielded them in glory perished, twisted and broken beyond recognition by the merciless powers of Nebilim's vengeance. His wife and children watched with anguished sorrow, which quickly turned to terror as the blackness began to creep across their own skin. _

_First the dulling, then the dreams will call. Darkness closes fast and terror ends it all..._

His audience was silent as he finished reciting, horror apparent on their faces at the dark tale. Abyssion smiled sadly, both guilty and grateful that he had gotten the bitterness of his family's plight across to these strange travellers, when Lloyd faced him with those perpetually fiery eyes, conviction showing itself in his firm stance.

"And you've been living with this all your life? This...darkness, hanging over you all this time?" The demon hunter nodded once, midnight blue hair sliding across his face and back at the motion.

"I'm afraid it's all I've ever known," he replied softly, and he couldn't quite keep the sorrow out of his voice. "But if I can find the Devil's Arms...There's a spell that can purify them, and destroy the curse. That's what I've been trying to do for a while now, but unfortunately," he smiled wryly at this, "I haven't been very successful thus far."

"So you need these to stop the curse?" The blonde girl stepped forward, holding the chakrams in front of her like two incredibly precious-or unfathomably dangerous-artifacts, offering them to the demon hunter before her. "They're rightfully yours then; I mean, it's not like I use them for fighting or anything. Here" Smiling in gratitude, he reached for the weapons, then staggered backwards as vertigo hit once more and left the world spinning before his eyes.

"Don't, Colette." Firm hands steadied him, and he managed to focus on Lloyd's concerned face. "You can barely stand up straight, much less search for cursed weapons that have scattered themselves across the world." Abyssion hadn't the heart nor strength to deny it, and the young brunette frowned, surveying the rest of his group evenly. But this time there seemed to be some sort of signal between them, and Lloyd smiled and nodded, before releasing Abyssion's arm gently and turning to face him. "It's settled then. We'll go out and find your Devil's Arms for you, then we'll bring them back here and you can purify them however you have to."

Abyssion's mouth opened, then closed again slowly. "W-What?" he managed finally, complete shock making him sound almost angry. "Didn't you hear a single word I said? This is a curse! If you become involved, it'll get you too!"

"Negative." A young girl stepped forward, childlike face expressionless and small body still. Even with her pink hair pulled into pigtails and girlish dress, she seemed much older than her years. "If your story is to be followed accurately, we must be led to assume that to be affected one must marry into your family. Since I doubt Lloyd plans to follow that course of action, we should be relatively safe from the demonic power of the cursed weapons." Abyssion ignored her words for a moment, observing her with a brief flash of profound sympathy. Something terrible had happened to her, that much was obvious. He knew what it was like to be that empty. He knew what it was like to be alone.

"Ew..." Shaking off his thoughts, he looked up to see Lloyd making a face at the girl in over exaggerated disgust. "That's so gross, Presea!" Abyssion looked back at her briefly, and his gaze was caught by her eyes, filled with the wisdom of years that didn't match her youthful form.

"Your name's Presea?" he asked softly, and she nodded, ever so slightly. Inside his head the Voice laughed, ever so slightly, but he ignored it, instead reaching down into the snow and lifting his key out of the white powder. "The Devils Arms are rumoured to be locked in enchanted chests that will only open with this key. It is called Nebilim's Key, and reacts to the sorcerer's dark power. That's why it reacts to your weapon like that." He hesitated, then bent over once more, this time lifting the two swords that had been lying in the shadows of the doorway. "Take these as well. I don't know how much good they'll do you, but they're the only Devil's Arms my bro-I've managed to collect. That's got to stand for something." He had almost said "my brother and I" and just the brief memory of Naideth and his futile quest for happiness brought a lump to his throat.

But Lloyd took the swords, either oblivious to or conscious of the sudden pain in his companion's voice. "Wow...Are these what the rest of those weapons look like too?" At Abyssion's nod, he laughed. "Man. We won't have any problems finding them then!" He gave the writhing blades one last amused glance, then shoved them in his bag and turned to the rest of his companions. "Let's go, gang." Despite his obvious youth, and the maturity of some of the other members, they followed without question, and Abyssion watched them make their way towards the city entrance, dark weapons hidden and key out of sight, but his personal darkness hanging about them nonetheless.

"Stay safe," he whispered softly, suddenly realizing the implications of his actions, that a young red-clad boy and his troop of adventurers had just gotten themselves involved in one of the darkest curses in the history of the world. Had he and his big mouth just condemned another party of innocents?

No. Despite his youth, there was something special about that boy, Lloyd. Conviction, inner strength, just plain stubbornness...He had handed the key to his survival over to those almost strangers, and, guilty as he felt about it, he would just have to trust them to put things right.

**--------**

Mmhmm...Now, was that worth waiting for? Probably not, but I hope it was alright. I put my own take on the whole "Nebilim cursed my family" thing and tried to make it more interesting, since in the game it's one of the lamest dramatic stories I've heard. So hopefully I succeeded at that at least.

I won't go on for too long. You've probably already guessed that I'm going to stay with Abyssion's point of view while the others are off searching for the Devil's Arms. Hopefully I can remember all the times he shows up...If not I'll have to look it up somewhere.

Thanks for reading! I'll update sooner this time, I promise.

lady-of-destruction-aria


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